Free Midnight Murders by Katherine John Page A

reporters’ cars.
    Reaching blindly, he groped for the door-handle behind him; as soon his hand closed over it, he turned on his heel, swung his stick, and in his eagerness to return to the cocooned security of the ward, slammed the length of his body painfully against the edge of the door.
    Bile rose into his mouth as he fought to push the door open. But all he succeeded in doing was thumping the full weight of the metal-framed UVPC door in his face; hitting the bridge of his nose, and almost knocking himself out. He reeled backwards, dropping his stick and falling to his knees, but still retaining his grip on the door-handle.
    â€˜Trying to get in, Trevor? Let me help you.’ Spencer Jordan’s strong hands closed over his elbows. Easing Trevor to his feet, he opened the door, and helped him in. ‘Your stick.’ Spencer retrieved it and handed it to him. ‘First time is always a bitch,’ he lapsed into American jargon. ‘I remember it well.’
    Trevor only just made it to his room in time to vomit the goat’s cheese sandwich into the toilet bowl of his private bathroom. Spencer held his head and sponged his face with cold water. Used to nurses ministering to his needs, Trevor saw nothing odd in Spencer’s actions. When he finished retching, Spencer helped him back into his room and steered him into a chair.
    â€˜As I was saying, the first time out is a bitch.’ Spencer smiled. ‘But you did it. And on your own.’
    â€˜I turned and ran,’ Trevor muttered, shame-faced.
    â€˜You wouldn’t have if there had been fewer people around.’ Spencer pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘Smoke?’
    â€˜I don’t.’
    â€˜Neither do I.’ Spencer returned them to his pocket. ‘I keep them for patients who do.’ He fingered the packet. ‘Sometimes I wish I did. It gives you something to do with your hands.’
    Trevor managed a small smile.
    â€˜Feel better?’
    â€˜Yes thanks,’ Trevor said diffidently. ‘I don’t want to keep you if you’ve a class.’
    Spencer walked to the window, moved the curtains, and looked outside. ‘I haven’t a class for another hour and a half, but if you’d rather be left alone, I’ll go.’
    â€˜I don’t want to be a bore and monopolise your time, when you have something better to do.’
    â€˜You’re not a bore and I’ve nothing better to do,’ Spencer answered easily.
    â€˜Just one more job in your crowded day,’ Trevor said dryly.
    â€˜You’re not a job.’ Spencer looked him in the eye. ‘You remind me of myself, of where I was a few months ago. In fact, until you came along, I was beginning to wonder if I’d made any progress at all.’ A ghost of a smile hovered at the corners of his mouth. ‘Then, when I saw you, I realised I had moved on.’
    â€˜So, I’m good as a progress indicator, if nothing else.’
    â€˜You’re different from the others. Your depression stems from your physical injuries and sometimes doctors are too ready to dismiss the havoc that severe physical damage can do to the mind, as well as the body. It’s all very well for them to tell you that you’re fit enough to start again where you left off, as though nothing had happened. You and I know it’s not that easy. First, you’re weak as a kitten because you’ve done nothing except lie around hospitals for months. Second, while you’ve been gone, the world has become larger, noisier and more threatening. Even simple everyday things like getting up in the morning, washing, dressing, talking, walking out through one door and in through another, take more effort than they did before; and that’s without taking crippling pain into account.’
    â€˜You really have been through it, haven’t you?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Spencer went to the door. ‘But today you took your